"Language is something all humans are born with a capacity to develop -
children learn language without effort - so it is fundamental thing that is
unique to humans."

Palmer and his colleagues are interested in the 94 per cent of the world's
7,000 languages that are spoken by just six per cent of the global
population.

"The big languages will still be around in 100 years' time but many of the
thousands of very small languages may well not be around, so we are in a race
against time to document them and study their significance," he says.

"It is estimated that between 50 and 90 per cent of languages spoken today
will die in the next century. Basically, if children don't acquire a language
then it dies in that generation.

"In Australia it is believed there were about 260 indigenous languages at the
time of white settlement. There are still over 100 but only about 18 of them are
spoken by the current generation of children. So in the space of one generation
we face the loss of more than 80 of those remaining languages."

Why should we worry about the loss of languages spoken in some cases by only
a single village in a small country? Palmer says there are several reasons,
apart from the overarching scientific value of studying language.

"Some researchers are interested in language endangerment for what you might
call the philanthropic reason that it is an important cultural thing, that there
is cultural identity and ethnic identity invested in language, so they should be
at least documented for future generations of the community, even if the
language cannot be preserved," he says.

"Another reason is that there is a lot of traditional knowledge enshrined in
local language that risks being lost when the language dies.

"I have read that something like 75 per cent of plant-based pharmaceuticals
were discovered by people talking to traditional healers and drawing on the
terminology in their indigenous languages.

"So another good reason to study endangered languages relates to the sum
total of human knowledge, which is impoverished by the loss of human
languages."

Palmer says researchers often spend up to a year living with villagers in
areas where languages are endangered. That attention can itself elevate the
status of local languages and convince people that they have something worth
saving.

He says many villages where there are endangered languages have to balance
the competing interests of preserving local culture and fostering a more global
outlook that will give their children a greater chance of success in the wider
world.

The Endangered Languages research program now
has more than 15 researchers now working across Australia, the Pacific Islands,
Africa, Central Asia and Saudi Arabia.

Three Endangered Languages Documentation, Theory and Application (ELDTA) research program PhD students from the University of Newcastle have been successful in winning scholarships from the Australian Linguistics Society (ALS). The funding will be used to research and help maintain some of the world’s most endangered languages in Australia, Indonesia and the Solomon Islands.

Three Faculty of Education and Arts disciplines have climbed in the most recent QS World University Rankings by Subject list. Linguistics is the star performer, increasing its ranking by 21 places to break the top 100 and rank at 88 in the world.

Dr Bill Palmer

Position

Senior LecturerSchool of Humanities and Social ScienceFaculty of Education and Arts